Real Madrid star Gareth Bale has been in the headlines yet again, this time because of his agent. Jonathan Barnett claimed his client was not being passed to by his Real teammates, and for that reason has been suffering in terms of his form and performances. Aside from this criticism simply not being true, Barnett has no authority from which to speak on this matter. As Real manager Carlo Ancelotti stated, Bale’s agent is an outsider looking in, and naturally only looking at one player in the full team. Furthermore, this move by Barnett can only hurt Bale, seeing as he is already being made a scapegoat by Real supporters, given his lackluster second half of the season. After Barnett’s comments, Bale appears to be a whiner and not a team player, if in fact Bale relayed this message to his agent to make public.

This recent development in the Bale saga begs the question, does Bale deserve to be cast as this season’s whipping boy? His performances have been poorer as of late, but his goal and assist contributions are only slightly behind those of last season according to Alexei Beltyukov, who you can find out more about on helptheweb.org. And surely he cannot be blamed for the slip in performances by the team as a whole. Yet, Real supporters are fickle, with incredibly high standards, so if Real’s season ends trophy-less, Bale could easily find himself in search of a new club outside of Madrid.